Kai Arakawa did not remember the moment he was found.
But he remembered the feeling.
Not warmth. Not safety.
Distance.
Like watching the world through thick glass, separated from it by something he could never quite touch.
---
The first story he was told about himself was simple.
A baby left at a hospital. No name. No explanation. No miracle.
Just a quiet child with black hair and eyes too aware for something that small.
Sarah had hesitated.
She never denied it.
"I was scared," she told him once, years later. "But you were crying like you already knew how lonely the world was."
So she picked him up.
That was how his life began.
---
Ren Arakawa worked long hours. Sarah worked longer ones.
They were not cruel people. They were not extraordinary either.
They tried.
Kai learned early that trying was sometimes the most anyone could offer.
The apartment was small. The walls were thin. The winters were cold.
But there was food. There was laughter, sometimes. There were hands that checked his forehead when he had nightmares.
That should have been enough.
Sometimes, it almost was.
---
Kai did not cry much as a child.
Not because he was brave.
Because crying felt pointless.
When he fell and scraped his knees, he stood up silently. When other children yelled and ran, he watched. When adults praised him for being "easy," he smiled politely and felt nothing.
He learned that approval came from being quiet.
So he became very good at it.
---
The dreams began before he had words for them.
He would wake up with his heart racing, staring at the ceiling, feeling as if something vast had brushed past him and moved on.
Red light.
White light.
Pressure.
Sometimes he woke up angry, fists clenched so tightly his nails drew blood. Other times he woke up calm, empty in a way that scared him more.
Doctors called it stress.
Teachers called it imagination.
Kai learned to stop asking questions.
---
By the time he entered elementary school, he already knew he was different.
Not special.
Different.
Children sensed it instinctively. They avoided him at first. Then they tested him.
A shove. A laugh. A name whispered just loud enough to hear.
He never reacted.
That frustrated them.
Eventually, frustration turned into cruelty.
---
Kai learned the patterns of pain.
Which insults were harmless.
Which ones were meant to linger.
Which ones mentioned his parents.
Those were the worst.
Not because they hurt more—but because something inside him answered them.
A tightness in his chest. A warmth that spread too quickly. A flicker of something that felt ancient and furious.
He learned to breathe through it.
He learned to endure.
---
Gates appeared more frequently as he grew older.
At first, they were distant flashes on the news. Then sirens. Then barricades and evacuations and missing people whose names were read once and forgotten.
Hunters replaced heroes.
Power replaced kindness.
Kai watched it all with quiet interest.
Not fear.
Recognition.
---
The first time he fainted near a closed gate, he was eleven.
He woke up on the pavement, strangers standing around him, concern already fading from their faces.
No one noticed the way the air seemed thicker around him.
No one heard the faint echo of laughter that followed him home.
He did.
---
Money became tighter.
Kai started skipping meals more often. Started working small jobs earlier than he should have. He never complained.
Ren's shoulders slumped a little less when the bills were paid.
Sarah smiled a little more when Kai pretended to be full.
Those things mattered.
They anchored him.
---
By fifteen, his days followed a rigid rhythm.
School.
Work.
Home.
Repeat.
Each day blurred into the next, differentiated only by the severity of bruises or the exhaustion in his bones.
He didn't hate his life.
That was the problem.
It was too quiet. Too small. Too… contained.
Sometimes, on his walk home, he imagined stepping into a gate instead of running away from one.
The thought made his heart beat faster.
That scared him.
And thrilled him.
«I'd rather have an exciting death than a dead boring life.»
The words surfaced one evening, unbidden.
He didn't reject them.
---
That afternoon, the sky was heavy with clouds.
Kai left school later than usual. His phone screen was cracked. His ribs ached when he breathed too deeply.
Nothing serious.
Nothing worth attention.
As he passed a large electronic billboard, the letters flickered.
GATE ALERT – CIVILIAN EVACUATION IN PROGRESS
The air shifted.
Kai stopped walking.
For a moment, the world felt closer. Sharper.
His chest burned.
Somewhere deep inside him, something stirred—not awake, but aware.
Watching.
Waiting.
Kai clenched his fists and kept moving.
He had lived with this feeling his entire life.
Surely, he could live with it one more day.
Behind him, unseen and unacknowledged, fate took notice.
And leaned closer.